A United Airlines plane was forced to turn around over the Atlantic Ocean when a passenger dropped a laptop down the side of a business-class seat.
Wednesday’s Flight 925 took off from London and was supposed to land at Washington Dulles International Airport about eight hours later.
However, two hours into the journey, the Boeing 767 turned around while flying over the Atlantic Ocean. It was over 250 miles from Ireland’s west coast.
Data from Flightradar24 shows it diverted to Dublin, touching down shortly after 8 p.m. local time — more than three hours after takeoff.
United Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside US working hours.
Online aviation enthusiasts picked up a message sent from the plane’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). It said a passenger dropped a laptop between the side wall and armrest of a business-class seat, and that it appeared to be stuck.
This would pose a safety risk due to the laptop’s lithium battery. If overcharged or damaged, it can result in thermal runaway, leading to rapid temperature increase.
Since the laptop was inaccessible, the crew might not know if it had caught fire until it was too late. That’s the same reason many airlines have tightened their rules on power banks this year.
The United plane spent nearly three hours on the ground in the Irish capital, departing at 11 p.m. Passengers ultimately reached Washington, DC, five hours later than planned, at 1:14 a.m.
This isn’t the first time a passenger’s lost device has forced a diversion.
Five weeks ago, a similar incident occurred on another United Airlines flight, en route from Washington, DC, to Rome.
The pilots told air traffic control that a passenger dropped their laptop, which fell into the plane’s cargo hold.
“We don’t know the status of it, we can’t access it, we can’t see it,” he added. “So our decision is to return to Dulles and find this laptop before we can continue over the ocean.”
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